Jiu-jitsu legend Rickson Gracie has created a new MMA event, ‘Mestre do Combate’, that debuts on November 22nd in Rio de Janeiro.

The event promises an unusual rules set, including:
•Fighters weigh in on the day of the show, to eliminate big weight cuts.
•Bell will not sound at the end of the round if it looks like a fighter is nearly about to be knocked out or submitted; the action will be allowed to run its course.
•Judges have also been eliminated - the winner will have to get the victory by KO/TKO or submission over two rounds, being the first of ten minutes duration and the second of five. If there is no submission or stoppage, three votes will decide the winner - one vote from Rickson, another from the referee, and the third from the public.
•Elbows are prohibited.

Given that day before weigh ins are the norm for combat sports that include knockouts, due to the increase in potential head trauma for a dehydrated fighter, the weigh in rule is problematic. Troubling too will be the definition of "nearly about to be knocked out or submitted." Asking the ref to also judge the fight has very widely been found to be asking too much of what is already one of the most challenging jobs in MMA; asking the crowd to choose a winner is absurd, and without precedent in any serious sport worldwide. And marketing an event as "Vale Tudo is back" while prohibiting elbows is a little schizophrenic.

On the plus side, Big John McCarthy is reportedly being brought in for the debut.

The IFL's city vs. city approach proved to be uncompelling, as summarized pointedly by UFC President Dana White - "No one wants to see the Hairy Beavers of Oregon vs. the LA Goonies." Notwithstanding, rather than purely singles competitions, Mestre do Combate is borrowing a page from the IFL - city teams!
•The fighters go one-on-one but each of them will be part of a team that will represent a Brazilian city. •One coach and five athletes (at heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight and lightweight) form the teams.
•The winning team will be the one that gets three victories from the five match-ups.
•The winner will go through to the next event.
•Approximately $350,000 will be distributed in purses during the 2012/2013 season.
•A nine-event calendar has reportedly been scheduled.

The debut will reportedly feature a Murilo Bustamante-led group from Rio de Janeiro vs. the São Paulo team under Francisco Veras of the Ryan Gracie academy.

“We want to create a new paradigm and recover values from the fight that were lost over time. Today, MMA fighting means blood and money. We will honor the warrior spirit and the fighting art,” says Rickson.

“Brazil generates wizards as in the ring the same as in soccer, and MMA is today the number two sport on pay-per-view. The proposal of Mestre do Combate is to provide a demand from fans and free TV. Besides that, we offer noble and exclusive events for the fans of all ages in night club for up to four thousand people”, says Carlos H. Moreira, president of the company that controls the event.

same day weigh ins is a fucking HORRIBLE idea, in wrestling in the NCAAS you had to weigh in a couple hours before you went and then re weigh in again everyday for multi day tournies, ive seen first hand guys cutting insane amounts of weight and then getting IVed up backstage as fast as possible with bag after bag of fluid.

weight cutting is and always will be a part of combat sports no matter what silly rules you try to put in place, you might as well ask everyone to train for the same amount of time each day to try to even the field.

"You can't stop it" and "anything goes" aren't the only two choices though.

FWIW, Dr. Margaret Goodman likes same-day weigh-ins, at least when given the choice between that or day-before. You'll also find Greg Sirb thinks this, and been altering PA's athletic commission rules for years to try to eliminate some of the massive cutting going on. IIRC, Freddie Roach has spoken out against weight-cutting too, though I don't remember if he favored day-of more.

A lot of people think day-before is actually MORE dangerous than day-of, especially in boxing.

WRESTLENOW - same day weigh ins is a fucking HORRIBLE idea, in wrestling in the NCAAS you had to weigh in a couple hours before you went and then re weigh in again everyday for multi day tournies, ive seen first hand guys cutting insane amounts of weight and then getting IVed up backstage as fast as possible with bag after bag of fluid.

weight cutting is and always will be a part of combat sports no matter what silly rules you try to put in place, you might as well ask everyone to train for the same amount of time each day to try to even the field.

Get your fatalistic pro-eating disorder attitude out of here. This isn't the 19th century. Same day weigh-ins are better than day-before in MMA for a variety of reasons if hydration is checked for, and I'm not talking about the urine test that cheaters fool in wrestling all the time. If someone wants to try and cheat and it happens to mess up their health that's their problem. Make them weigh-in right before the event and deal with the consequences instead of making it easy for athletes to alienate faulty rules and go against the intent of the rules.

Better yet keep the day-before weigh-ins for tradition sake and require athletes to pass a blood hydration test along with the urine hydration test. Good luck getting around that.

Acting like "Derp! That's just the way it is" and defending a faulty status quo is the most ignorant attitude in sports.

Some of the rules Rickson wants to use are interesting. I don't like the idea of the ref being a judge. Making the crowd the judge isn't perfect but it'll probably make fighters fight harder for the finish than the unified rules do. How are they going to keep track though, via text message?

Very, very unusual set of rules, can't really see how this recaptures the warrior spirit, can't really see how this is anything other than a twisted twist on MMA, he realizes he can't copy the UFC so he makes up some crazy rule changes.

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